Music saves lives. How many times in your life have you heard that? While everyone’s story is different and their lives turn a different way than they wanted to turn out, in the end music has always been there and provided a soundtrack to our lives to get us through any and all situation that we might be going through.
When I was 17/18 years old, I had gotten into a band called Boys Like Girls. Boys Like Girls (affectionately also called BLG) were formed in late 2005 in Andover, MA a suburb of Boston by band members Martin Johnson (formally of the band Fake ID/The Drive), Paul DiGiovanni, John Keefe and Bryan Donahue. In their time together, they recorded and put out a few demos entitled “Free”, “If You Could See Me Now” and “The Only Way I Know How To Feel”. Back during the days of self-promotion and long before YouTube came along, the band uploaded a rough demo version of (what would later be their biggest hit) “The Great Escape” and an acoustic version of “Thunder” to the website PureVolume. By the end of 2005, they became climbed the No. One Top Unsigned Artists chart for the website and a few months after that, they were invited to tour with the band Cute Is What We Aim For, Hit the Lights, All Time Low and singer Butch Walker. Soon after they hit success with their self-titled album, they began recording their 2009 follow up entitled “Love Drunk”. They found success after success with both albums and in between 2010-2011 they updated their fans saying that they were hard at work on their third studio album. This is where things took a turn for the weird. In 2011, Bryan Donahue unwilling left the band and the band carried on with recording but the updates soon stopped and there was no word from the band on their next album. There were speculations that they had broken up or just simply took a “hiatus” which a lot of the bands that everyone grew up with at the time were taking. Then in December 2012, the band released their third album entitled “Crazy World” and bassist Morgan Dorr would become a permanent fixture in the bands line up. Soon after releasing “Crazy World”, the song “Be Your Everything” became the first single and “Life Of The Party” followed up right after. The band had no plans on releasing anymore videos for “Crazy World”.
Now that you have a bit of history on BLG, you must be wondering why I care so much. Well, this story only gets better. The band released their self-titled album August 22nd, 2006 and it has been almost 10 years to the day that the album has been released. A few months ago, the band released a small announcement that they would be going on tour for the 10-year anniversary of their first album and playing it front to back live. Like with anyone who was a fan of the band growing up, this was a big thing. This was big because it was one of the ultimate throwbacks to our youth and to growing up. It was such nostalgia for us all who grew up to be Millennials. While the opening band, The Old Fashions, blew me away (acapella pop covers of songs we grew up with. I mean hello! Who wouldn’t want to hear two guys and a girl sing “Baby One More Time”—you, that’s who), it was really Boys Like Girls that stole my heart. Both opening and closing the show with “The Great Escape”, I felt like I was suddenly transported back to 2006 when I was 18 years old. The significance of that album with forever be emblazoned in my brain. Boys Like Girls' self-titled album helped shape me into the teenager that I was. Once timid and shy and going through the motions of depression, that album helped me open up and become and feel carefree. It taught me that I have to live for the moment and not regret anything in life. “Thunder” held a special meaning for years for me (for which I won’t say what) and before the concert, I stopped listening to it. Last night was the first time in about seven years that I heard it and it sounded just as beautiful as ever. Before the show, I took part in the meet and greet that the band held. While there were many new fans (including one girl who said she’s only been listening to them for a year), most of the crowd were older fans. While this was a celebration of their first album, they also played a few songs from their album “Love Drunk” in the encore. It just sounded amazing live.
I also had the opportunity to meet the band before the show and that was something so special for me. Getting to meet them for the first time after listening to them for so long was a little emotional for me. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but after our photo was taken, I really wanted to tell them thank you for the music and for helping me shape the person I became and I couldn’t help but cry and being given a huge bear hug by Martin Johnson, while the other guys were there giving words of encouragement and rubbing my back, it was almost like the cherry on top of a huge ice cream sundae that and they got a huge bag of salt water taffy out of it all.
In the end, it was a night that I never want to forget and I night I wish I can relive all over again. But like with anything, life goes on, the band moves on and eventually they’ll finish their little tour and go about their daily lives and everyone goes on living theirs. But the one thing I can take away from their show, is the feeling of being carefree and I’m sure most (if not all) of the people in the room that night felt the same way that I did and still do.
“cause we are finally free tonight”
